What I Meant
by Karen Kannabilly
Summary: L x Reader. Volunteering to work on the case despite L giving everyone permission to rest on this particular day turns out to be an annoyance when the detective repeatedly offers you sweets. I am quite bad at summaries.


You hadn't meant to react that way, the flat of your palms slapping against a hard surface and bounding off all the silent objects in the room, the echoes themselves followed by a firm "_NO._"

The hours of staring at the screens, retina tiredly meeting the formation of words upon words _upon words_. The sunlight just inching away outside all the while, your head pounding with that stupidly significant question- _Who is Kira?_

And the need to know, after spending so much of your time, was all that made the migraines and heavy eyes pushing past their dizzy limits worth it. However, the frustration of your spent, sleepless states of being made you act differently.

Volunteering to work when L had given the others a _break_ turned out to be something your brain considered out of its own character. Your day could have been spent sleeping in, whirling in reliefs and the laughter of friends. Instead, you chose the added ache to your head of being asked, for what very well could have been the tenth time, if you'd like graham crackers, or cookies, or cake or strawberries _or any number of the other detrimentally sugary treats_ the apparently greatest detective in the history of the past and future universes busied himself with sucking down that bottomless, hunched over-framed pit of his.

"Suit yourself," He'd simply said, shrugging with his tone rather than his actual shoulders.

You felt guilty for it. His indifference irked you, but nonetheless there was that sense of _guilt_ over being somewhat rude toward him for such a trivial, no matter how repetitive, offer.

_Maybe I should say I'm sorry...?_ You glanced at him to ponder, but quickly jerked your neck to pull your head away once again upon meeting his eyes. You hadn't expected him to be looking at you.

_He doesn't seem to mind, anyway..._ You fidgeted nervously, relieved when you felt his eyes leave you.

"Have a looksee at the older murders- before the ones we've already identified as Kira. Perhaps something of interest was missed, a clue or one that appeared just 'garden variety' we didn't catch," A hum of consideration from his closed mouth before he slid a plastic baggie toward you, pointing his index finger into it and lazily skirting it across the counter in your direction. "Cookie, (name)?"

You issued a low growl that vibrated audibly and gave an all too clear sign of your rekindled annoyance, answering in strained octaves as you eyed the little sweets decorated in chocolate.

"_No_, L."

"You know, (name), there's no need to get angry over a kind gesture."

You sighed, furrowing your brows and rubbing the kinking skin between them on their journey to point downward. "Look, I'm... sorry. This whole Kira business makes me feel like I'm walking down a road with no end, it's all really... frustrating. I've lost count of so much time just sitting here and reading and I just can't handle being asked the same question over and over when I'm already asking myself a single question for hours on end. I apologize... but I don't want any."

There. Something sincere and articulated to your liking, polite and guilt-lifting with the added benefit of perhaps stopping the offers for sweets every few minutes.

"No need. I enjoy the idea of you being here and working without the usual distraction of others that are normally around helping, myself, even if you refuse my treats in that indignant way of yours. In fact, (name), maybe I'm compelled to keep asking just to hear you reject them. Hm..." L held a small, tan-hued cookie between the tips of his forefinger and thumb and let his eyes glint at it with a strange interest before carefully slipping it between his parted lips, index finger pressing against them as they closed and his jaw grinded in crunching noises.

"Tch," You tilted your head at him and let your pupils dig into his features with a wry grin in your response as a sense of bemusement replaced the previous irritation; he, however, didn't return your glance, his finger remaining pressed to his lips and his dark eyes flickering with the light of the screen before them. "Always talking in those circles- or in ways that make it sound like you're talking in circles. What do you _mean_, L?"

"I meant that I think you're cute."

The silence that followed this answer- uttered so _simply_ in that same monotone and half-bored voiced he tended to use- was the kind of quiet that manages to eat the eardrums and mind somehow in its own very noiseless nature.

"..Wha...?" Your lips fumbled to move correctly and you could feel heat clouding under your cheeks, burning. Out of any prediction you could have made, and expectation you'd had of him- the idea of such a sentence coming from L had never meandered through your head.

Abruptly he turned toward you, dawning that oddly handsome and amused little smile of his, extending arm marked by the rustling of a bag offered in the extremity at the end.

"Cookie?"


End file.
